Shane Van Gisbergen Explains Why He Is Making His CARS Tour Debut At Florence
NASCAR Cup Series driver Shane Van Gisbergen is making his CARS Tour Late Model Stock Car debut on Friday night at Florence Motor Speedway.
Video Transcript
Never thought I'd say this at Florence Motor Speedway, but we're catching up with Shane van Gisbergen who's gonna run a late model stock car here, and I guess I'll just start with that.
What the heck are you doing here?
Yeah , I don't really know.
Dale asked Conor and I last week if we wanted to do it, and pretty hard to say no.
I'd come here a couple of years ago, and, watched the race.
So yeah, I wanted to have a go.
And thanks to Dale for setting it up, Red Bull, and Heading Out Racing, and hopefully we have some fun.
How did practice day go on Friday?
What were these cars like versus what you've been used to on the NASCAR side?
And what was it like running a short track oval with no walls on the outside?
I mean, I had pretty low expectations.
Everyone had talked them down about how bad they were and how bad the tire is.
And surprisingly, it was pretty good.
So yeah, it was a lot of fun.
I need to get bet- ma- better at managing the tire.
I was struggling with that.
And, you know, it's so hot here, so, hopefully tonight being a bit cooler it hangs on, and yeah, mix it up.
So that kind of surprises me to hear you say that, 'cause I figured going into this I'm like "Okay, Shane's been known on the NASCAR side for managing his tires on these road courses so well."
Yep.
Florence is known for that.
I figured that would be one of the advantages you might have, over anything else in this car.
I mean, on an oval it's different, the way you drive and the way you balance the car or sit it on the right front, left rear, or whatever you wanna do.
And so I just need to get better at how I do that.
And got some tips this morning from Dale and also Leigh Pullium, and hopefully that helps me.
Is Do you think you might take any sort of bragging rights back to some of these other NASCAR guys if you do well?
'Cause I know a couple years ago Kyle Larson finished 13th at Caraway.
Byron, I think, finished fourth at Caraway.
So if you do better than them, at least you can take that back and be like, "Hey, I'm not a short track late model guy, but I still beat you guys there."
I mean, I won't, but I mean, Kyle finishing 13th shows you how competitive it is here.
I was wa- looking at the times from everyone, and everyone's within a couple of tenths, and the level is really, really high.
So pretty cool to be able to be that close to them.
I was gonna say, you were fast yesterday, so does that kinda reset your expectations a little bit?
What is the goal for tonight's 125 lap race?
I don't have one, but I think we were cl- close in some points of today, but so hard to know where everyone's at with tires, you know?
So once qualifying happens, we'll, we'll see where we're at.
Well, that's Shane van Gisbergen.
Like I said, never thought I'd say this, but Shane van Gisbergen running a late model stock car here at Florence.
You can watch it live on FLW racing tonight.
